Los 40

Los 40
Broadcast area Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Spain
Slogan Music Inspires Life
First air date 1966
Format CHR
Language(s) Spanish
Owner Grupo PRISA
Website Los 40 Website

Los 40 (formerly Los 40 Principales) is a Top 40 CHR musical radio network and radio station brand in many Spanish-speaking countries from Prisa Radio. The station has its origins as a music show at Radio Madrid, today Cadena SER in 1966, where the 40 Principales chart was born, then evolved into a spin-off radio station in 1979. In 2006, the chart celebrated its 40th anniversary. The brand’s network in Spain has more than 4,000,000 listeners alone.

Some stations under this brand name are owned and operated or are licensed by Grupo PRISA to use the brand. Some 40 Principales stations are operated by a local broadcasting company and affiliated with the company that holds a license to use the brand from Grupo PRISA. Each 40 Principales network typically broadcasts its own national feed from its respective country.

Los 40 Principales stations broadcast in:

Most Los 40 networks generally air Spanish-language and English-language contemporary hit music that mostly includes U.S. American, Latin American, Pan-European and British singers and bands. Some stations air more Latin Top 40 music while some more European and English-language music and others more Reggaeton. It has a high-rotation playlist consisting mainly of tracks from its private chart. The main music genres that can be heard are Pop, Pop-rock and some House music.

History

In 1965, the Ministry of Information and Tourism passed a law forcing medium wave radio stations to launch FM stations to develop FM in Spain. Due to the high costs of producing new shows, most of the schedule for the new stations was based on music, mainly classical music. In 1966, Cadena SER asked one of its broadcasters, Rafael Revert, to develop a new music show aimed at a younger audience. So he took the idea of the Top 40 and created a chart with the 40 top singles of the week, which would be voted on by the audience. So, on July the 18th, 1966, the first show of Los 40 Principales was broadcast on Radio Madrid, marking the debut of the chart list, with Monday Monday by The Mamas & The Papas as the first number 1 on the list.

Soon, the show would be broadcast on ten Cadena SER radio stations. At first it was a daily show, revealing candidates during the week, and the new list each Saturday. The viewers would phone each station to vote for their favorite songs. The show was recorded in Madrid, then the tape was sent to all of the affiliate stations throughout Spain and broadcast simultaneously. The duration of the show was increased during the 70s from the original 1 hour to more than 8 hours by the end of the 1970s. In 1979, Cadena SER decided to create new 40 Principales stations, which would be dedicated to the chart and its candidates 24 hours a day. At first, the 40 Principales stations were still part of Cadena SER, becoming an independent network in 1987, though still owned by Grupo PRISA alongside Cadena SER. In 1985, the 40 Principales main station began broadcasting live by satellite throughout Spain.

In 1990, the chart show started being broadcast also on TV through Canal+, and in 1998 also on the newly created 40 Principales TV satellite channel. The chart show got its present name, Del 40 al 1 (From 40 to 1), in 1995. During the 2000s, 40 Principales was expanded through Latin American opening several stations in Spanish speaking countries with either local media companies operating stations within a country or listening area or Grupo Prisa operating a company within a country.

In May 2016, Los 40 Principales re-branded as simply Los 40.

Controversy

In December 2014, DJ Paul Hip asked listeners of 40 Principales Chile what they would do for free music concert festival tickets.[1] The radio station hosted a competition for contestants to come up with their own challenges. If their challenge was accepted by the radio DJ, they were given the opportunity to complete it to win the tickets.[2]

One female listener offered to do "actually anything, up to and including licking whipped cream out of a human anus" to win tickets to the Mysteryland EDM festival. Hip took the woman up on the proposal - in the middle of his show.[1] On 17 December 2014,[3] she completed the act live on air.[2][4][5] Hip then proceeded to invite listeners of the radio station to kiss the woman[6] who had just licked whipped cream from his anus to win tickets of their own.[7]

The radio station's production team[6] tweeted an uncensored image of the act,[2] which went viral over Twitter and caused controversy,[6] with Twitter followers[2] calling the act "misogynist and humiliating" and questioning the station's ethics and journalistic ethic. The radio station later issued an apology saying they were sorry if they had offended their audience and they probably should not have accepted such challenge, but assured it was completely "voluntary and even suggested by the participant" in a contest that was open to what ever each contestant wanted to do. The radio station deleted the tweet promptly after the negative reactions and assured their fans the contest's only purpose was to have fun, and not to hurt or demean anyone.[8]

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/13/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.